Saving Grace
by liveandlove1989
Summary: ""I've missed you." It was no more than the ghost of a sentence, the shell of a whisper. But it made it to Elsa's ears. Not to her heart." Modern AU, ElsAnna (yes, icest) depending on further installments, dark themes, plenty of angst


**A/N:** _Hey guys! So, I kinda went on a sort of hiatus for a bit there regarding elsanna. Writing in general, honestly, wasn't really feeling it. But this past week has had me seeing a spike in ideas. And I really wanna share a few._

 _I'mma he honest, I'm not sure where this one is heading. Could be a shortish angst fest or some romance novel, who knows. I'm just going with it._

 _That said though, if angst, icest, and pretty much just dark themes in general aren't your thing, click away people. I love getting criticism (believe it or not) but some people plow right through that and straight into just hateful insults. So, be considerate, yeah? Thanks!_

 _Try to enjoy haha! -Sara_

* * *

Three years.

She hadn't looked into these eyes in three years.

Thunder roaring behind closed blinds couldn't cover up the thump of a loaded bag on hardwood. Arching shadows, dancing darkness, couldn't hide wide eyed shock. Confusion. Fear.

Her constricting throat couldn't stop the words given life on the tip of her tongue. "Hey, Els."

And the sky opened itself. The first pitter patter of rain against glass began, innocent and pure.

Elsa backed a step without thought, unconscious of the way her hands had fisted, the way trimmed nails dug crescents into otherwise unmarred flesh. Her mind was a raging, savage thing prone to fretting over one lesson. One mantra that had been burned into her understanding. As natural as it was to breath.

 _Conceal. Don't feel._

 _Don't let it show._

Her eyes were glazed over pools of nothingness before she next blinked. "Anna."

It shouldn't have been so easy not to waver. It shouldn't have been so simple to feel empty all over again.

The redhead's mouth opened. Without sound she stepped forward. A shaky smile that looked more like a plea made its way across her features, stretching thin lips up unsteadily.

"I've missed you." It was no more than the ghost of a sentence, the shell of a whisper. But it made it to Elsa's ears. Not to her heart. _  
_

Her jaw clenched. A trickle of blood, the faintest of stinging where nail broke skin. "You shouldn't be here."

Teal eyes widened, so full of desperation and so full of aching it was unreal. Unfair. Another step forward had Elsa stepping back, where both faltered and both stared and neither could breath.

Not when the air was a blanket of lies and deceit pummeling down on their shoulders with renewed vigor.

When was the last time she'd been able to physically _feel_ the wounded looks her sister gave? The last time she'd _tasted_ the bitterness of self hate coating her tongue?

The blonde was shaken from cryptic memory by the wavering of a tear choked voice.

"You were right." Anna hung her head in shame, twin braids falling over her shoulders, which heaved with the need to sob but inability to do so. "God, Elsa, you were right."

When was the last time those words had kicked her when she was already down?

Something inside her burned, Elsa realized. Something inside had been struck by the sparks she'd thought burned themselves out years ago. And it _hurt_.

But poker faces had always been her shoulder to lean on. And it was too easy to revert back to stoic, seemingly unaffected, unfeeling.

"Go away, Anna. You said you wouldn't come here."

"And you said you'd answer," was snapped back, but eyes didn't meet and Elsa didn't flounder and the words just hung there. Anna had to swallow, bring the backs of her wrists up to wipe at tears mapping imaginary lines down her cheeks. "You said you'd email."

That fire inside Elsa reared its head, anger and terror morphing into one being that brokered on a mental melt down. All in the span of five minutes. Ten at best.

"You knew I was lying," she growled, and felt the sting of more skin being pierced along her palms. She knew it would burn later. "You knew when I left. So why, why come here? Why now?"

Her voice lost all power when Anna looked back up.

There was more than desperation tucked back in that look. There was more than anger, more than confusion, more than pain. There was hope. There was pleading. There was _life_.

"Because I need you, Elsa. You're all I have anymore."

Lightening split the dark, a silent echo that filled the apartment. Thunder followed eagerly, shouldering its way into their ears and making a home at the back of Elsa's skull. A dull throb that brought with it washed out and long forgotten memories.

Of cheeky grins and flittering giggles. Of numb fingers and burning noses and shallow breaths visible in the night air. Of caught whispers as lips finally, _finally_ brushed. Of unsteady, tinkering laughter and confused eyes.

Of wide eyed realization and floundering excuses that meant everything. _That changed everything_.

Of packed bags and signed goodbyes. Of dark windows and a revving engine. Of emptiness as none of those lights turned on. Not one.

Elsa blinked and she wasn't sitting behind the wheel of a beat up truck anymore. She wasn't staring at a sleeping farmhouse, praying someone would stop her. Instead, she was standing in a dead zone. A silent apartment, a silent building. Staring at a figure that had gone missing from her dreams only a few months ago, even if it had long since been gone from her reality.

And she could have laughed.

Anna was still looking to her. Waiting, pleading. Hoping beyond hope that somehow, along the way, Elsa had let whatever festering wound she'd left untreated scar over.

No such luck.

Blue disappeared behind fluttering eyelids, a fist finally unclenched long enough for fingers to rise, pinch too harshly at the bridge of her nose. A ragged breath hissed through her teeth, painful.

And Anna was suddenly struck with the realization that she didn't know this woman. This woman whose face was harsh and unflinching. This woman whose words held an edge of bitter rhetoric. This woman whose sheer presence made the room feel several degrees cooler.

There was such a weight bound to her now. She wasn't the same quiet smiles and shy laughter. She wasn't the picked wildflowers and teasing childish youth Anna had known.

Years of something sheathed in unknowing had taken that woman, that once girl, away.

Anna wasn't sure what part made her stomach drop furthest.

"Please," she tried again, but nothing could take the lead from her limbs The distance between their rigid frames could have been a continent in that instance. "Please, just look at me."

Thunder. Lightening. Silence.

Elsa felt the tears too late. They fell eagerly down cold cheeks, shamefully, unbridled. She couldn't stop the catch to her breath when her throat tightened. When her lips opened, a whine escaped in place of her voice.

A flittering moment passed where her mind came to the conclusion that she desperately desired her sister's arms around her. To feel how warm sun kissed skin really was. To smell how sweet strawberry shampoo could be again.

Her hand fell limply to her side. An unsteady step back, slight turn. Hand on the cool metal doorknob.

She didn't look back as she murmured out the only words that made it to her vocals. "Place is paid for for another week."

The door clicked back in place after her, it and three years worth of regret enough of a barrier to assure no pursuit.


End file.
